“It's okay with me,” Vince says. “I'm blind as a bat.”
Laurie keeps reading, and I'm writing it down as she does. “J … R … C … 6 … 9 … 3.”
“The last number is a 2,” Chris says.
I say to Laurie, “He's younger than you.”
Laurie stares a quick dagger at me, but it doesn't concern me. “What state is it?” I ask.
Chris responds: “It looks like New Jersey.”
I put the piece of paper in my pocket, and Laurie and I start heading for the door.
“You got what you need?” Vince asks.
“I sure as hell hope so,” I answer.
A LICENSE PLATEFROM THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO represents the best clue we have had into the meaning of the photograph. This is in itself a commentary on how little we've accomplished. For instance, the license could well turn out to have been issued in my father's name, which is to say it would be of no use to us.
The next task, of course, is to find out who the plate belonged to. This is not going to be easy, and there is only one person I know who can accomplish it quickly and with the discretion required. Unfortunately, it is the person I attacked on the witness stand a few days ago, Pete Stanton.
I know where Pete lives, so Laurie and I drive out there. It's about forty-five minutes away, in a little town called Cranford.
“I thought cops were supposed to live in town,” I mutter, unhappy with the length of the drive, and dreading Pete's reaction to my arrival.
“You might not want to complain about it to him,” Laurie suggests to me. “He's not going to be that anxious to do you a favor in the first place.”
We are about five minutes away, off the highway, when we pass a sign on the road. It directs the driver to make a right turn to get to the Preakness Country Club.
“That's Markham's club,” I say. “We should sneak in and put shaving cream in his golf shoes.”
Laurie doesn't think that's a very mature idea, so we continue on to Pete's house, a modest colonial in a quiet, unassuming neighborhood. I would love to send Laurie in alone, but my male ego won't let me do it, so I walk with her up the steps and nervously ring the bell.
After a few moments, Pete comes to the door. He opens it and sees me standing there.
“Oh, Christ,” he says.
My plan is to immediately apologize for being so tough with him on the stand. I'm going to talk about the fact that I was just doing my job, unpleasant as it sometimes is. I'll beg for his forgiveness, tell him how important his friendship is to me, and hope that bygones can be bygones.
Unfortunately, my plan goes up in smoke when I see that he is wearing a ridiculous red bathrobe, so comical that I am physically and emotionally unable to avoid mocking it.
“Nice outfit, Pete. Does the whole team have them?” I ask.
For a brief moment he looks as if he is going to kill me, but I think he decides it's not worth doing all the paperwork that would be involved afterward. Instead, he starts to close the door.
I push back against it, holding it open. “Wait a minute! We need your help!”
“Forget it.” We're actually pushing against the door from opposite sides in a weird reverse tug-of-war, and I am not coming out on top.
“Come on, I'm sorry!”
I think he can tell that it was not the most sincere of apologies, because he keeps closing the door.
I yell to Laurie, “Don't just stand there!”
After a brief moment that seems like an hour, she shrugs and says, “I need your help, Pete.”
Pete immediately relaxes and opens the door. He speaks only to Laurie. “Why didn't you say so? What's up?”
I jump in. “We have to run down an old license plate.”
Pete ignores me and again speaks to Laurie. “What's up?”
“We have to run down an old license plate,” Laurie says.
This is starting to annoy me-I mean, all I did in court was my job. “Hey, what am I, invisible?”
“You're lucky you're not dead,” Pete snarls. “You turned me into a goddamned idiot on the stand.”
“You were already a goddamned idiot. I just brought it out into the open.”
This time I'm pretty sure that if he has a gun in that cute red bathrobe he will shoot me. Laurie tells me to go wait in the car, which I think is a wise idea.
From the time I get in the car, it only takes a minute or so. Laurie comes back and gets in the passenger seat.
“Let's go,” she says.
“What happened?”
“He's going to call it in. We should have it tomorrow.”
“See?” I say. “I told you I could handle him.”
I drop Laurie off at her apartment and then head home. Pete's going to get us the information, and then we'll either have something or we'll have nothing. I have rarely felt less in control.
The next morning I ask for a meeting in Hatchet's chambers with him and Wallace. They have heard about Nicole getting shot, and I lay out for them the threats we had received and the attack in my office. I make the case that someone is actively trying to prevent justice from being carried out, and I ask that I be allowed to depose Victor Markham and Brown-field about the photograph.
Wallace seems genuinely sympathetic to my situation, but is obligated to make the point that no significant legal link has been made between the photograph and the Miller trial. He is technically correct, and Hatchet is also technically correct in denying my request. Which he does.
Our first witness this morning is going to be Edward Markham, on whom I am planning to take out my frustrations. Laurie has joined Kevin and me at the defense table for the day's festivities.
As I glance around the courtroom, I see that Victor is there to provide sonny boy moral support. He's going to need it.
Just as Hatchet is taking his seat behind the bench, the door in the back of the courtroom opens and Pete appears. He walks toward me as Hatchet is instructing me to call my first witness.
Pete hands me a small piece of paper and says, “I figured I should deliver this one personally.”